As an Agile coach and trainer, I have had many rewarding Agile experiences working with clients. When something great happens for them, I gain satisfaction from seeing them learn and grow. Today, I was pleasantly surprised to be on the receiving end of a great Agile experience! I had reached out to a company with a question, and they responded and solved a problem in a very Agile way. 

A bit of backstory: I had some downtime between Christmas and New Year’s, so I was doing what most people do during this time of year—researching tools to help my company be more effective as we grow. I was specifically looking at our back-office tools for client engagement management (time-tracking, expenses, invoicing, etc.) to simplify things for our consultants, administrators, and clients. I decided to give Harvest a whirl and immediately liked it more than our previous time-tracking and invoicing tools (and by the way—it has continued to work great!). After a couple weeks using Harvest, I found one issue that I didn’t like: if you decide to accept online payments from clients, you had to allow both AHC (bank transfer with no fees) and credit cards (2-3% fees!). We’d rather not pay needless credit card fees, so on January 6, I sent a message to Harvest’s customer support to see if there was a way to disable the option to accept credit card payments. Daniel Marino @starzonmyarmz, a Product Designer from Harvest, responded in less than 24 hours to let me know that turning off credit card payments was not currently a feature. But he didn’t stop there—he asked why I wanted the feature disabled and how I would want it to work if it existed.

I responded to his questions and thanked him for taking the time to ask. I assumed that was that, and I’d just have to live with not having the feature. My past experience with our previous time-tracking and invoicing tool was that requests typically were given lip service and then quickly ignored. 

You can imagine my surprise when I opened Harvest on February 15 to find a new feature announcement at the top of the page!

“New! You can now disable credit card payments when you enable bank transfer (ACH) payments.”

To my amazement, it was exactly the feature I had requested. Simple and minor, but they listened—and delivered on my request less than 40 days from when I contacted them. 

Customer focus, delivering value, adapting to change, and short cycles. Wow, that’s what we train and coach our clients to do all the time! That is Agile.

I’m thrilled to have a simple and personal example to share with our training workshop attendees. Go, Harvest! 

Swift Adaptation to Market Changes:

The marketing landscape is subject to rapid shifts, from emerging trends to changes in consumer behavior. Agile methodologies empower marketing teams to adapt swiftly to these changes. Through iterative planning, regular reassessment, and flexible project management, marketing teams can adjust their strategies in real time, ensuring that campaigns stay relevant and impactful in the face of evolving market dynamics.

Enhanced Collaboration and Communication:

Effective collaboration is the lifeblood of successful marketing campaigns. Agile emphasizes constant communication and collaboration among team members. Tools like Kanban boards, daily stand-up meetings, and collaborative platforms facilitate transparent workflows. This not only ensures that everyone is on the same page but also encourages the sharing of ideas and insights, fostering a culture of open communication that is vital for successful marketing endeavors.

As an example, at Project Brilliant, our Marketing team uses collaboration tools such as Trello, Slack, Mural, and Zoom to continuously stay in communication with each other. 

Data-Driven Decision Making:

In the digital age, data is an invaluable asset. Agile marketing teams leverage data analytics to inform decision-making processes continually. Regular sprint reviews and retrospectives allow teams to analyze campaign performance, identify successful strategies, and make data-driven adjustments. This iterative approach, based on real-time data, ensures that marketing efforts are not only creative but also optimized for maximum impact.

Customer-Centric Focus:

Agile places a strong emphasis on understanding and responding to customer needs. By incorporating customer feedback into regular iterations, marketing teams can ensure that their strategies resonate with the target audience. This customer-centric approach is exemplified by companies like HubSpot, which actively seeks and integrates user feedback into their product and marketing strategies, resulting in a more personalized and effective approach.

Flexibility in Campaign Planning:

Agile allows marketing teams to break down campaigns into smaller, manageable tasks. This not only facilitates better project management but also enables teams to respond quickly to emerging opportunities or challenges. Whether it’s adjusting the focus of a social media campaign or pivoting the messaging of an email campaign, Agile provides the flexibility needed to optimize efforts for the best possible outcomes.

The adoption of Agile represents a paradigm shift in the way marketing teams operate. By embracing an Agile mindset, marketing professionals can unlock new levels of efficiency, collaboration, and innovation. As the marketing world continues to evolve, those who embrace Agile will not only keep up but lead the way in driving impactful and memorable campaigns. Agile is a catalyst for elevating marketing excellence.

Being able to adapt provides an edge over the competition. and expanding your organizational Agility can get you there. The question is: how?

The answer: With a coach who can work with you to address your needs. Read on to learn what goes into choosing the right Agility partner and position your organization for continued success.

Importance of Approaching Agility the Right Way

Did you know that as many as 67 percent of organizations say business Agility is a high priority? It’s understandable when Agility has the potential to improve productivity and the ability to adapt to sudden changes and unknowns. But the trick is in seeing it through—otherwise, it won’t work.

Commitment to Improve

One thing we like to say here at Project Brilliant is that there’s a difference between “doing Agile” and being Agile. Pursuing Agile practices just to improve processes or try something new isn’t sustainable and can lead to cult behavior, challenges, and resistance—hurting the business instead of helping. Organizations need to have a clear purpose and commit to becoming Agile to see tangible results.

Collective Effort

Look before you leap. Leaders should be stewards of Agility, but also be deliberate about getting organizational buy-in to succeed—otherwise, the shift could create friction. A methodical approach yields the best results.

Instead of imposing decisions on teams, work gradually to create a mutual understanding and empower them to adapt to what will work best. Once you’re well underway, share ongoing results to keep teams apprised of how Agility efforts are working to improve the organization—and where it might help to keep refining.

Must Be Continuous

The unique thing about organizational Agility is that it’s not a project with an end date. Rather than upgrading your servers to the latest version, it’s more like tossing them in favor of introducing something different and more effective. 

Agility is a fundamental shift in the way you do things in an effort to constantly adapt and improve. One thing that helps is to put processes in place to manage and measure improvement, giving teams insight into the “why” behind their efforts and showing them real results.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Partner

The Agility partner you choose needs to be able to guide you toward actionable results from the beginning of your relationship onward. With that in mind, prioritize what matters most in a potential partnership.

Your Corporate Soulmate

There’s value in finding a partner you can see yourself working well with, so screen potential Agility partners with this in mind. What’s their company culture; does it match yours? Do they understand your end goals? Compatibility matters!

For our part, Project Brilliant is an ideal fit for organizations that possess several key attributes:

• Open-mindedness: You must be willing to experiment because the right answer isn’t always the first one!
• Effective communication: Agility is an iterative process, so leadership needs to keep all parties on the same page along the way.
• A learning culture: We’re here to help you improve and even learn from failures as long as you’re open to it.
• Commitment: Change is hard, but being able to see it through to the end can lead to valuable improvements.

Experience Going Through the Mud With You

When you’re looking for an Agility partner you need to know they can deliver—and not just on the basics. With a few possible partners in mind, start by looking at their track records. Your partner needs to have experience that can move the needle for your organization. Can they wade through the messy parts of agility as much as the processes and practices? 

For our part, Project Brilliant brings over 20 years of experience across consumer goods, financial services, retail, technology, and more. We’ve proudly completed over 10,000 training programs and helped to launch over 1,000 teams. Our team is also adept at change management—laying the groundwork for success by minimizing resistance, helping implement a plan for transformation, and being available for ongoing training to sustain change.

A Winning Team

When clients are happy, it shows. Do potential partners have glowing testimonials? How about repeat or long-term clients? Looking into these successes gives you more insights into their process and training approach—learning whether it’s generally effective and whether it suits your organization.

Project Brilliant has helped companies around the world achieve business growth and success. Our case studies provide a glimpse into what you can expect from our team.

Tough Love vs. Sympathetic Ear

How do various organizations approach Agility? Take the time to learn about prospective training partners’ philosophies and processes—are they more hands-on or do they just offer a starter toolkit?

Project Brilliant not only offers intensive training for Agile certifications but also becomes an extension of your team by collaborating across the entire organization. Our AgileOS business Agility model incorporates a customizable approach with three key pillars guiding the way: teams, products, and leaders. By honing in on these elements, Project Brilliant meets you where you are to pave the way for long-term success.

Forge Your Agile Path

Being able to stay on your toes as an organization comes in handy as the world and your industry keep changing. If you can adapt, you will have an edge over the competition to keep providing excellence to all you serve.

But it can’t be a one-shot effort. Agility must be intentional, collective, and continuous—and the right partner impacts your success. Project Brilliant can help. From intensive training to extended consulting, we’ll work with all levels of your organization to improve your organization’s Agility. Schedule your meeting today to learn how we can help.

At Project Brilliant, having a learning culture is paramount.  According to Peter Senge’s  book “The Fifth Discipline”,  a learning organization is a group of people working together collectively to enhance their capacities to create results they really care about.  We embrace this mindset at Project Brilliant and believe our learning and advancement allows us to be the very best for our clients. 

We don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk. Project Brilliant makes significant investments to foster continuous learning among ourselves and our community. One example is our Project Brilliant Fridays.  We do not do billable client work on Fridays. We dedicate 20% of our time each week to learn and share from and with each other. In doing so, we expand skills and knowledge across our team to further our coaching and training expertise.  We also use this time to work together developing training and educational content to promote learning for our clients and the community.

In addition to Fridays, Project Brilliant supports and encourages each other to pursue learning opportunities on topics we are passionate about. Every year, team members select several training classes, cohorts, and certifications to help us continue our personal growth.  The learning our team has had in the last few years is remarkable. Topics such as Agile Fluency, Leadership Agility, Large Scale Scrum (LeSS), Scrum@Scale, Clean Language, Competing Values Framework, and Path to Agility are just a few examples.   

The other side to all that learning is sharing.  We continually share our learnings too. We teach each other new techniques from conferences and trainings that we’ve attended.  We share ideas from articles and videos that we’ve viewed. We have a book club where we can share insights every month. We often bring back what we’ve been doing at client sites to help each other learn.  This continuous act of sharing builds strong bonds between us at Project Brilliant and contributes to our learning culture by helping each other improve and grow personally and professionally.

We recently extended our learning culture focus to the community with the launch of PB Labs. PB Labs is a full-day of Open Space dedicated to a specific theme.  Each PB Labs event brings together Agile practitioners and other thought leaders from the local community.  Similar to most Open Space events, people are passionate about sharing and learning with their peers. If you are interested in participating in a PB Labs event, please contact us.

Project Brilliant has made learning an ongoing priority.  The investment and focus on learning has shaped our culture.  Now learning and sharing is a part of our day to day. It’s been fulfilling to experience the impact that our learning has on our clients.  Our eyes are now more open to see new possibilities for ourselves. This renews our commitment and motivates us to keep on learning.

Many consulting firms try to squeeze every last penny out of their clients.  We intentionally grow OUR capabilities and expertise so we can pass them on to our clients. We truly want our clients to succeed. It is critical that we continually stay on the cutting edge in able to support those clients and help them meet and exceed their goals.

Read our latest blog: Agile Transformation – Top Down or Bottom Up Support?   Watch the 4th episode in our free course series: Navigating The Agile Path  Don’t just take it from us! Check out this Forbes Article from 2022.  Agile Is Trending: 3 Ways Agile Makes Work Better   Sign up for Certified Agile Training for yourself or your team   Register for our next Free Webinar with Project Brilliant CEO, Aaron Kopel   Grab a quick meeting with an Engagement Planner to learn how you can start down a successful path right away

Ready To Start The Conversation?

One of the leading reasons Agile transformations fail is inexperience with managing transformational change.  That’s why Project Brilliant offers a complete Business Agility consulting program for organizations of all sizes.

No matter what stage of transformation you might be in, having an experienced partner by your side is one of the best ways to improve your return on investment. 

Get in touch to schedule a meeting and see how Project Brilliant can help. 

Allergic to the word Agile

And like pollen that causes allergies, some people have been reacting to the word “Agile”; it’s been derided as a scam on hacker news, discredited by traditional-minded corporations as a mere fad, and hotly debated by consultants who cannot decide whether it is still applicable or not. As far back as 2012 when ComputerWorld published its article “Agile: glam or scam?”, two camps were revealed – those who found success with agile methods and saw no better way to work and those who deemed the process cumbersome, costly, and unhelpful. Maybe the truth resides somewhere in between. And many in the agile community believe that their most formidable adversary is not Waterfall but rather ‘bad agile’.

Not only is the term ‘agile’ a trigger for some people, but several other words can also elicit a similar reaction. When I was employed by a major healthcare insurance company, I was informed certain terms were considered radioactive like gaps and analysis, and I should never utter them in front of executives. And when asked why they pointed to their past experiences with bigger consulting companies that they had since kicked out. In another assignment, the CIO insisted we not use the word ‘Product’, but instead replace it with ‘Solution’ without exception. This presented us with an amusing challenge as we tried to promote product thinking and product ownership, which was tough, yet not impossible.

Where did the word agile come from?

Let’s take a closer look at the definition of Agile and its implications. According to the dictionary, it means “able to move quickly and easily” – with synonyms like nimble, graceful, flexible, etc. The connection between the dictionary definition and the intent behind the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, as expressed by some agile proponents, is to be able to “change on a dime for a dime”. I learned from one source that when the manifesto writers deliberated over various words, Adaptive Software Development was a serious candidate. Allegedly, it did not make it into the final document because one author, who had written a popular book about it, would have profited too much if chosen. Nevertheless, they eventually decided that “agile” was the most suitable option. One of the authors of the manifesto even wished they had gone with something absurdly humorous, such as “Artisanal Retro-Futurism crossed with Team-Scale Anarcho-Syndicalism“. He makes several valid points in his video; it’s certainly worth watching.

The Agile Landscape: Scams and Misconceptions

The Agile Manifesto outlines principles that prioritize collaboration, customer satisfaction, and delivering value continuously. And can be easily extended beyond software with adaptation. However, as the popularity of agile has grown, so has the number of organizations claiming to be “agile” without fully embracing its principles. This has led to the rise of “fake agile,” where organizations use agile as a buzzword to gain credibility without actually making meaningful changes to their development processes. Steve Denning’s decade-long research led him to identify three main components constituting a mindset that make an entire organization generate both operational agility (better existing business) and strategic agility (new products/services for new customers.) They are:

1. The law of the small team states that small cross-functional teams are the building blocks for Agile and Lean organizations 
2. The law of the customer says that success comes from delivering value to the customer and that organizations must focus on delivering value as quickly as possible
3. The law of the network states that organizations must leverage networks and ecosystems to achieve their goals, and that the power of the network grows with the number of nodes in the network

These laws are a good way to look at how well the agile landscape is laid out for the organization.

The Importance of Purposeful Development

Regardless of what you call it, purposeful development is key to delivering business value and achieving meaningful progress. Companies must take a holistic approach to delivery, one that puts the customer at the heart of their strategy. This means actively seeking out feedback from customers and incorporating it into the product design and development process. Additionally, companies should focus on collaboration between teams and stakeholders in order to ensure that all aspects of the project are given equal consideration and attention. Finally, embracing continuous improvement is essential for the successful delivery of value-driven projects. Constant review, testing, and refinement will help organizations improve their processes and products over time while ensuring they remain relevant to customers’ needs. By combining these principles with iterative development, organizations can move past fake agile approaches and be better able to drive real business outcomes.

Navigating the Agile Landscape

Navigating the agile landscape and promoting meaningful development requires organizations to reframe conversation beyond trigger words and concentrate on a few key areas:

• Emphasizing customer value: Prioritizing the needs of the customer and delivering value that meets their needs should be at the forefront of all development efforts. This means regularly engaging with customers and iteratively improving products based on their feedback.
  • An example of this would be understanding and prioritizing customer complaints, rather than cutting costs by reducing customer support.
    
• Fostering collaboration: Agile development is founded on the principles of collaboration and cross-functional teamwork. Organizations should encourage collaboration and promote a culture of continuous improvement to drive progress and foster innovation.
  • An example would be in creating cross-functional teams that include representatives from different departments, such as development, design, and product management. Additionally, regularly scheduled meetings like sprint reviews provide opportunities for stakeholders to give feedback earlier.
• Embracing continuous improvement: Purposeful development is a journey, not a destination. Organizations should embrace a mindset of continuous improvement and continuously evaluate their processes and practices to drive better outcomes.
  • An example of embracing continuous improvement is conducting regular retrospectives that could be layered at the team, multi-team, and enterprise levels. 

Keeping Transformations Business Outcome Focused and Generative

I’ll conclude with two points. Firstly, It is necessary to recognize why some words can cause harm and lead to undesirable results. By being aware of the potential effects of our words, we can express ourselves more carefully, especially when interacting with people from different backgrounds. To ensure conversations are respectful and inclusive, we should make sure to avoid offensive language and maintain a level of mutual respect. Comprehending why certain phrases may be seen as radioactive is important in constructing a space for everyone to be heard and respected.

Secondly, organizations must prioritize purposeful development regardless of the techniques used in order to maximize business value and reach meaningful objectives. To stay on track toward such aspirations, organizations should focus on customer satisfaction, promote collaboration amongst personnel, and embrace consistent enhancement. Agile principles should not be overlooked as they can aid greatly, but also keep in mind that there is more to achieving success than just following the methodology – it largely rests on the principles of intentionally developed progress while evaluating methods that enable improved outcomes.

Ready to start the conversation?

One of the leading reasons Agile transformations fail is inexperience with managing transformational change.  That’s why Project Brilliant offers a complete Business Agility consulting program for organizations of all sizes.

No matter what stage of transformation you might be in, having an experienced partner by your side is one of the best ways to improve your return on investment.

Get in touch to schedule a meeting and see how Project Brilliant can help. 

It’s a very good question and there are quite a few misconceptions. To start exploring this topic, let’s begin with what a manager typically does in a traditional environment. We’ll use Jim – who manages a team – as an example.

Jim The Traditional Manager

• Output: Jim’s main responsibility is the output of the team. Is the team delivering what is expected of them? They better be because Jim is accountable for the work getting done. This paradigm often leads to micromanaging, distrust and an ‘us versus them’ mentality.
• Priorities: Jim is also responsible for assigning work to the team. This often happens based on individual strengths, which does not support skill development and further perpetuates already existing silos of knowledge. It becomes easy for people to sit back and wait to be told what to do and keeps Jim really busy.
• Performance: Jim is in charge of who gets a raise, bonus or promotion. However, Jim is very busy monitoring output and doling out work, so it’s difficult to have an accurate understanding of how well each person is performing. Once again, this approach promotes the individual and not the team.
• Capabilities: Developing people’s skills is important but is often overlooked in a traditional system. When 1-on-1 discussions happen, Jim usually receives a status report about the output and priorities, which feed into performance evaluations. Little time is spent coaching and mentoring.
• System: When it comes to improving the system in which teams operate, Jim does not have the time or authority to lead change. System level issues are often “escalated” to Jim’s manager because that might be “above his pay grade.” In addition, Jim does not have the knowledge of systems thinking and isn’t sure how to connect the dots.

How Do Managers Become Managers?

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to imply that managers are incompetent or bad people. These situations and managerial approaches often stem from good intentions. Let’s see if Jim’s story sounds familiar to anyone…

Jim was great at his job – we’ll call him a Doer. So great, as a matter of fact, that he was promoted to Lead Doer. After excelling in his role as Lead Doer, he was again promoted, this time to Senior Doer. And due to his knowledge, skills, and continued excellence in doing, he was promoted yet again. This time he was promoted to Manager… something he knows nothing about. In addition to not knowing how to manage people, he’ll be expected to do it without any formal training. Jim is happy, but more than a little nervous…

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that is the classic corporate career path of an aspiring professional. It’s not really Jim’s fault.  He’s just doing what’ “he’s supposed to do.” It’s a step I’ve seen many friends and colleagues take. And I’ve seen those people take it hesitantly because they knew they’d be giving up what they loved most about work. But it’s a new challenge.

Unfortunately, it’s a challenge in which most new managers are not set up for success. This is because many new managers don’t receive training in management at all. If they do receive training, it is most likely in scientific management theory – also known as Taylorism – which has proven to be ineffective with knowledge workers.

Since Jim is now a manager, but hasn’t been trained to be a manager, he will instinctually work in his comfort zone. When he was a doer, he was very focused on output and priorities. His manager would tell him what to work and follow up to see how it was going. Therefore, that’s what Jim thinks he should do. Unfortunately, he is focused on the wrong issues. What needs to happen is that we flip the priorities on their head, and here’s why.

Jim The Agile Manager

Let’s imagine that Jim took some leadership training, got some coaching and mentoring and understands how an Agile manager should behave…

• Output: Jim is supporting an Agile team. A Scrum Team to be precise. While Jim used to focus heavily on the output, that is not necessary on a Scrum Team. Why? A Scrum Team has a self-organizing, cross-functional group of people called the Development Team. Their responsibility is to develop high quality products that delight customers. They were hired because they are good at their job, and the organization trusts them to deliver. Jim no longer needs to focus his time on managing the output and can redirect his energy elsewhere.
• Priorities: Jim used to let everyone know what they should be working on. They relied on Jim for that. However, on a Scrum Team there is a Product Owner whose responsibility is to prioritize the work. The Product Owner (and Development Team) collaborate with the stakeholders and users to understand what should be worked on next. Again, Jim can focus his attention in other areas.
• Performance: While Jim will still be involved in assessing performance, many others will now be involved as well. On an Agile team, we’d like to see 360 feedback where the most important feedback comes from peers and those working closely with each other. This encourages accountability at the team level because teammates know who is contributing and supporting one another.
• Capabilities: Now that Jim is not focused on the output and priorities, he has more time to get to know what people are struggling with and how he can help them. Perhaps he coaches and mentors them. Perhaps he makes the case to increase the training budget so people can stay on the cutting edge of new technologies. Perhaps he finds some funding to support a community of practice. Jim is helping develop people and the team so that they can be more effective.
• System: Jim is now able to take a step back from the day-to-day details of the work being done by the Scrum Team and look at the whole system and how it flows from concept to cash. Jim learns about systems thinking and organizational design. He collaborates with other managers and executives to break down silos. As a team, they identify the system optimizing goal and work together to eliminate organizational impediments.

Jim is kicking ass and taking names. He has a new outlook on what a manager should do. He now understands that what he was once busy managing – the output and priorities – aren’t the big challenges. The team can figure that out. His energy and focus are better spent tackling the messy issues of politics and structures and policies that get in the way of real change taking place. Where people used to say “that’s just the way things work around here,” Jim is breaking down barriers and helping to change the organization’s culture.

Traditional Managers vs Agile Managers

As you can see, the role of an Agile manager flips upside down the role of a traditional manager. Because the team is empowered to make their own decisions and trusted to get their work done, managers can focus on difficult issues that will lead to lasting and meaningful organizational change. Taking on those challenges requires skill, perseverance and fortitude.

It’s not easy, but someone’s gotta do it. And that someone is Jim, the Agile Manager.

While doing my daily research of new and upcoming trends on Agile, I stumbled back upon this oldie (it’s so 2022), but goodie, from Entrepreneur titled “Go Agile or Go Home: Why Agile Workflow Should Kill the Waterfall Process for Good”. You should definitely read it, it is chockfull of great information. But I’ll share my favorite excerpt below if you are sparse for time.

“Traditional waterfall and agile methodologies stand in opposition to each other on basic levels. With a waterfall, everything happens in a straight line. You set the goal, and your team has to finish one stage of the project before moving on to the next one. If any issues crop up, everyone has to go back, pinpoint what went wrong, and make fixes before they can continue. The expectation is that you’ll have a deliverable at the end of each stage.

With agile, this all flips. Teams can work in sprints on different parts of the project simultaneously. Deliverables are not necessarily required at each point. Workers troubleshoot and make changes as they go.

Because agile allows for on-the-fly analysis and adjustments, it enjoys a strong advantage in that it allows you to readily adapt to whatever circumstances life and the world throw at your business. National Public Radio (NPR) demonstrates an example of this: The broadcast network initially took a waterfall approach to shows, investing heavily in programs they thought would work and doing big launches. When NPR ran into budget problems (as so many companies do), they took an agile approach and started doing small pilots on a more local level instead.”

Great information, right? But it’s not mind-blowing. We know Agile can improve so many things in your organization – it just takes time, effort, and Leadership support to get you there. Below are 6 additional resources to help you better understand Business Agility and maybe convince that boss of yours, it’s time to make a change.

Read our latest blog: Preventing Allergic Reactions: Navigating the Agile Landscape Beyond Scams, Fads, and Buzzwords.

Watch the 5th episode in our free course series: Balance Time, Cost, and Scope.

Check out the article mentioned above from Entrepreneur.

Sign up for Certified Agile Training for yourself or your team.

Register for our next Free Webinar

Grab a quick meeting with an Engagement Planner to learn how you can start down a successful path right away.

Ready To Start The Conversation?
Project Brilliant offers a complete Business Agility consulting program for organizations of all sizes.
No matter what stage of transformation you might be in, having an experienced partner by your side is one of the best ways to improve your return on investment.

• The TEAM, not the project – The fundamental building block of Scrum is the TEAM, not the project. Scrum teams are cross-functional, dedicated and long-lived. We bring the projects to the team, not the other way around. Scrum Masters focus on creating effective high-performing teams that can adapt to change and deliver value continuously rather than resource balancing and buffering Gantt charts, aka playing “human Tetris.”
  
• Agile teams are self-organizing – Project managers are expected to lead the charge and solve the problem themselves, removing responsibility and accountability from the team. Scrum Masters promote team ownership and coach the team to solve problems…

Individual ownership = better solutions & increased accountability

• Short-term vs. long-term focus – Project management by its very nature is focused on short-term solutions. The focus is kept until the end of the project, then the people move on to other projects. A built-in incentive is created to be efficient and get to the end of the project. However, the organization must deal with the product in the long term. After the initial project ends and the customer sees it for the first time, then can they tell us what they really want. Scrum Masters concentrate on building a team that is focused on effectiveness so that we can continue to adapt to change in the long run. Effectiveness over efficiency is a mantra of the Scrum Master.
  
• Fit for purpose – Waterfall methodology works great for “simple” problems, such as ones where we can lock in scope, identify initial solutions, develop a plan and efficiently execute projects. This works well for building roads, bridges, and houses. However, this rarely ever works in IT, software, and product development. The ever-changing environment of the tech world doesn’t allow rigid “big upfront planning.” Scrum Masters help teams continuously improve by frequently inspecting and learning adaptive long-term goals.
  
• There is no such thing as an “Agile project manager” – Project managers are necessary coordinators in Waterfall given its compartmentalized nature and focus on efficient execution of locally optimized silos and components. The industrial age need for a hero to provide the perception of control over uneducated automatons is outdated. This function is completely eliminated in Scrum, as we are dealing with high-functioning adult professional knowledge workers who focus on customer value.

We hope that your Agile journey is smooth sailing!

What is the nature of the work you are doing? Is it novel (creating new things that require thinking, designing, concepting) or repetitive (same thing over and over)? Is the work plannable (we have some reasonable preview of the upcoming items we need to handle) or is it ad hoc (little warning, reactionary)? We can take these aspects of the work, create a simple four-box grid, and determine which framework would typically work best.

• Plannable/novel: product development (software development teams)
• Plannable/repetitive: building servers (infrastructure team)
• Ad Hoc/novel: production support (tier three support – new/serious production problem)
• Ad Hoc/repetitive: forgot my password (tier one help desk support)

Scrum relies on having a product backlog and at least a bit of foresight into what’s coming—so it fits the plannable column. Scrum also has time built-in for planning, review, and retrospective which is highly desirable in a novel situation, but likely to be inefficient and ineffective in a repetitive situation. Thus, Scrum fits the plannable/novel box, and Kanban is probably a better fit for the other three boxes. In my experience, that works 90% of the time. So, we’re done, right?

Well, not so fast… many teams straddle these lines. Let’s say your development team is responsible for product development (plannable/novel) and production support (ad hoc/novel). We probably need to think a little deeper about how much ad hoc work typically comes up and how disruptive it is to plannable work. If it’s predictable (i.e. typically spend 20 hours on production support each sprint), then potentially reserve some capacity to allow for production support surprises. If it’s not so predictable and highly impactful, Kanban may be a more desirable approach. However, keep in mind that Kanban typically requires more team discipline as there are no deadlines (i.e. end of the sprint), so be fully aware of your potential risk areas.

When you’re debating Scrum or Kanban, this should provide some guidance and framework to help you and your teams think through the approach which may work best for your specific situation.

Interested in learning more about this topic? Let’s talk.